October 17, 2025

Duckworth Demands Trump Administration Stop Forcing Law Enforcement to Abandon Criminal Investigations for ICE’s Reckless Civil Enforcement

 

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] — U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) is demanding the Trump Administration stop the dangerous diversion of federal law enforcement personnel and resources to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) reckless operations, in turn making our communities less safe. In a letter sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, Duckworth condemned the Administration for weakening crime-fighting operations in favor of prioritizing immigration enforcement, forcing federal law enforcement officers who should be focused on investigating and prosecuting violent criminals, terrorists and human traffickers to abandon their mission and serve in ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). Duckworth is also demanding answers to understand exactly how many law enforcement officials have been assigned to help ICE and the impact that has had on ongoing investigations.

“President Donald Trump’s radical decision to divert our nation’s premier law enforcement officers away from critical public safety missions, such as disrupting terrorist plots, stopping illegal firearms trafficking, dismantling human trafficking operations and hunting down fugitives, has made America less safe,” wrote the Senator.

“Federal law enforcement officers are being forced to support a radicalized and out-of-control ICE ERO that is unable, or unwilling, to prioritize apprehending undocumented immigrants with a history of violent criminal activity,” the Senator continued. “Instead, ICE ERO is engaging in lazy racial profiling tactics that waste massive amounts of taxpayer dollars apprehending and detaining nonviolent undocumented immigrants without criminal records, while inevitably violating the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.”

In her letter, Duckworth noted that over 70 percent of individuals in ICE detention have no criminal convictions, and most of the rest are for minor offenses like traffic violations. Redirecting skilled federal investigators to these operations undermines community safety and weakens core law enforcement missions.

Specifically, the Trump administration has forced nearly 7,500 DOJ law enforcement officers and employees to abandon their primary duties to perform work for ICE, despite lacking experience and training in civil immigration enforcement. In total, nearly 17,000 non-ERO employees—including 14,500 federal law enforcement officers—are being diverted from critical missions that combat violent crime, disrupt drug trafficking and protect national security.

“Congressional Republicans provided ICE with an obscene level of mandatory funding exceeding $40 billion,” the Senator concluded. “This unprecedented amount of funding is more than sufficient to enable ICE to carry out civil immigration enforcement in an effective and efficient manner without stealing law enforcement resources that should be used towards investigating and prosecuting dangerous and violent criminals.”

The full text of the letter is available on Senator Duckworth’s website and below:

Dear Attorney General Bondi and Secretary Noem:

I write to demand that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) end the Trump administration’s dangerous practice of forcing thousands of Federal law enforcement officers to abandon operations targeting dangerous violent criminals and reassigning these highly trained criminal investigators to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) reckless civil immigration enforcement activities.

President Donald Trump’s radical decision to divert our Nation’s premier law enforcement officers away from critical public safety missions, such as disrupting terrorist plots, stopping illegal firearms trafficking, dismantling human trafficking operations and hunting down fugitives, has made America less safe.

From forcing Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) special agents to waste resources stalking day workers in Home Depot parking lots, instead of investigating illicit gun trafficking and straw purchasing schemes; to ordering Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents to serve as ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) lackeys, instead of conducting criminal investigations into terrorist plots, drug cartels and horrific purveyors of child sexual abuse material (CSAM); the Trump administration is failing to target the “worst of the worst” criminals.

Adding insult to injury, Federal law enforcement officers are being forced to support a radicalized and out-of-control ICE ERO that is unable, or unwilling, to prioritize apprehending undocumented immigrants with a history of violent criminal activity. Instead, ICE ERO is engaging in lazy racial profiling tactics that waste massive amounts of taxpayer dollars apprehending and detaining nonviolent undocumented immigrants without criminal records, while inevitably violating the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

That ICE is choosing to do all of this while hiding behind cowardly masks sends a chilling message to the American people: we are not accountable to the public, and we are here to intimidate citizens—not to serve and protect.

Of course, President Trump knows weakening Federal, State and local law enforcement capabilities and capacity is deeply unpopular, and I expect each of you will deny reality to prove your loyalty to Donald Trump.

However, the facts are clear. Over 70 percent of the individuals in ICE detention—at great cost to the American taxpayer—possess no criminal convictions, and even among the minority of detained individuals with a criminal record, the majority of convictions are for minor offenses, such as traffic violations.1 In addition, ATF, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) criminal referrals have plummeted by double digit percentages since President Trump began his second term, while drug prosecutions have fallen to their lowest level since 1998.

In stark contrast to the Trump administration’s stunning diversion of Federal law enforcement resources away from combatting violent crime, State and local law enforcement agencies have been working incredibly hard to reduce crime and bring perpetrators to justice—even as President Trump defunds the police by withholding Federal grants that help local law enforcement agencies hire and train more cops.

While President Trump continues to unleash deranged rants and endless lies about the City of Chicago, the reality is that violent crime has, and continues, to fall across every category—with the overall violent crime rate falling to its lowest level in nearly four decades; the number of homicides in the summer months dropping to the lowest level since 1965; and the Chicago Police Department increasing its homicide clearance rate to 74 percent.

Of course, significant work remains to further reduce violent crime in pursuit of the ultimate goal of achieving a homicide rate of zero—work that would be more effective if the Trump administration would allow Federal law enforcement officers at FBI, ATF, DEA, and USMS to cease civil immigration enforcement activities and get back to investigating dangerous criminals and violent transnational organized crime (TOC) groups.

The Trump administration’s stubborn persistence in pushing propaganda about Chicago that is untethered from reality deepens suspicions that President Trump’s true motivation in forcing Federal law enforcement to abandon missions combating violent crime is to sabotage hard-won progress made by local law enforcement and community members in reducing violent crime in Chicago and surrounding communities.

President Trump’s efforts to undermine law enforcement and make America less safe date back to the first full day of his second term, when DOJ circulated a memo authorizing personnel to immediately begin conducting civil immigration enforcement, to the detriment of ongoing criminal investigations into foreign and domestic terrorist plots; violent TOC groups, including dangerous drug cartels; interstate illegal gun trafficking operations and horrific sex crimes, including human trafficking and the production and distribution of CSAM.

Since then, DOJ has followed through on its promise to weaken crime fighting operations in favor of prioritizing civil immigration enforcement targeting individuals present in the United States without authorization—a civil violation of Federal law that is not a criminal offense— even if such individuals have no criminal record and pose no threat to the community.

Specifically, the Trump administration has forced nearly 7,500 DOJ LEOs and employees to abandon their primary law enforcement duties and instead, perform work for ICE ERO, despite lacking experience, expertise and adequate training in civil immigration enforcement matters.

In total, President Trump is forcing nearly 17,000 non-ERO employees, including 14,500 Federal LEOs, to perform civil immigration enforcement—an absurdly high amount that vastly exceeds the approximately 6,100 existing ICE ERO officers.6 This massive diversion of law enforcement resources away from combatting violent crime includes:

  1. FBI forcing thousands of employees, including nearly half of its agents working in major field offices, to cease performing traditional law enforcement missions, such as counterintelligence, national security and the investigation of child sexual exploitation;
  2. DEA forcing half of its agents to cease activities focused on combatting the proliferation of illicit fentanyl and other drugs in our communities;
  3. ATF forcing an outrageous 80 percent of its workforce to stop law enforcement activities seeking to crack down on the flood of illegal firearms into the hands of dangerous criminals;
  4. USMS forcing roughly one fifth of its law enforcement personnel to cease apprehending dangerous fugitives and providing security to our Federal courts; and
  5. Even the chronically understaffed Bureau of Prisons (BOP) allowing ICE ERO to poach its employees despite the clear security risks of worsening an already dire staffing crisis.

DOJ’s failure to prioritize law enforcement operations targeting violent criminals extends to the prosecution phase, where the Trump administration has instructed DOJ components, including the Criminal Division, to “pursue all charges relating to criminal immigration-related violations” as they are presented,10 even though implementing this directive takes prosecutorial resources, time and attention away from securing convictions of dangerous violent criminals, drug cartel operators, drug dealers, gun traffickers, CSAM creators and distributors, human traffickers and foreign and domestic terrorists.

To better understand the scope and dangerous impact of the Trump administration’s massive diversion of Federal LEOs and resources to carry out civil immigration enforcement activities, please provide the following data (which should be easily retrievable from existing enterprise resource management systems) by October 22, 2025:

  1. Since January 20, 2025, how many DOJ employees have been assigned to support immigration enforcement;
    1. How many of these DOJ civil servants are LEOs;
    2. How many of these DOJ civil servants are prosecutors;
    3. How many of these DOJ civil servants work in the National Security Division;
  2. Since January 20, 2025, how many FBI employees have been assigned to support immigration enforcement;
    1. How many investigations were diverted FBI employees working on prior to being forced to support civil immigration enforcement;
    2. A detailed list describing the type and status of each investigation referenced in subparagraph a.;
  3. Since January 20, 2025, how many DEA employees have been assigned to support immigration enforcement;
    1. How many investigations were diverted DEA employees working on prior to being forced to support immigration enforcement;
    2. A detailed list describing the type and status of each investigation referenced in subparagraph a.;
  4. Since January 20, 2025, how many ATF employees have been assigned to support immigration enforcement;
    1. How many investigations were diverted ATF employees working on prior to being forced to support immigration enforcement operations;
    2. A detailed list describing the type and status of each investigation referenced in subparagraph a.;
  5. Since January 20, 2025, how many USMS employees have been assigned to support immigration enforcement;
    1. How many investigations were diverted USMS employees working on prior to being forced to support immigration enforcement;
    2. A detailed list describing the type and status of each investigation referenced in subparagraph a.;
  6. Since January 20, 2025, how many BOP employees have been assigned to support immigration enforcement;
    1. A detailed list identifying which facilities BOP employees were poached from, including the number of BOP workers diverted from a given facility;
    2. The notice that BOP wardens were provided in advance of DOJ and DHS poaching BOP employees to support immigration enforcement operations—or confirmation that the Trump administration failed to provide such notice.

In heeding President Trump’s demand to pass a moral monstrosity of a reconciliation bill—which contained the largest Medicaid cut in history, while somehow also exploding the national debt by over $4 trillion—Congressional Republicans provided ICE with an obscene level of mandatory funding exceeding $40 billion. This unprecedented amount of funding is more than sufficient to enable ICE to carry out civil immigration enforcement in an effective and efficient manner without stealing law enforcement resources that should be used towards investigating and prosecuting dangerous and violent criminals.

Sincerely,

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